Top of the World Review: The Very Best – MTMTMK
Posted on August 19th, 2012 in Recent Posts, Reviews by Songlines.
Words by Nigel Williamson
Genre busting crew live up to their name
The combination of the Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and the London-based electro production team Radioclit made The Very Best’s debut Warm Heart of Africa one of the freshest and most surprising genre-smashers of recent years. The follow-up is another life-affirming mash-up of African voices, dance beats, samples and electronic trickery that puts a smile on your face and has you leaping around the room. It doesn’t really sound anything like a Manu Chao record, but there is the same sense of authority and purpose, a feeling that these people aren’t just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks, but have a vision and know exactly what they are doing.
The last album featured M.I.A. and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig. This time around Amadou & Mariam, Baaba Maal and K’naan are among the collaborators. The latter once again proves himself to be the best pop-rapper in the business on ‘We OK’, a track every bit as infectious as his brilliant 2010 football world cup anthem ‘Waving Flag’. The highlight, though, is ‘Bantu’, a dense, layered wall of Afro-psych that starts with the uplifting sound of an African choir and proceeds via some spine-tingling singing from Baaba Maal, Mariam and Jose Hendrix into a sitar-heavy global jam of cosmic intensity. So often this kind of studio-based concoction can sound clever but cynical and lacking in soul. The genius of The Very Best is that they make music with a warmth and generosity that you can hear in everything from Mwamwaya’s emotive voice to the last electronic bleep and blip. This is world music in a thrilling new sense.
